The Eyes of Orson Welles with Beatrice Welles

Beatrice Mori Gerfalco Welles has devoted her extraordinary life to a multitude of humanitarian causes, in addition to her tireless dedication to the preservation of the work of her father, Orson Welles. In 2018, she co-created and co-starred in The Eyes of Orson Welles  - directed by Mark Cousins - which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The sole heir of the Orson Welles Estate, her vigilant work includes overturning Turner Broadcasting’s attempt to colorize Citizen Kane, her father’s masterpiece-- and the most studied film of all time.  She has curated Orson’s artwork, personal correspondence, and scripts at the University of Michigan’s Special Collections Library. 

Young Beatrice grew up traveling, living around the globe with her closely-knit nuclear family. This reluctant childhood actress never wished to follow her father’s colossal footsteps to the stage and screen. Encouraged by her papa to work and follow her passions, she was gifted a horse for her birthday on the set of Orson’s favorite film, Chimes At Midnight—in which Beatrice appeared.  

A rising star in international equestrian competitions, she purchased former racehorses, training them for show jumping. A severe knee dislocation halted her riding career and at fourteen she pivoted to modeling. In the era before the lucrative supermodel contracts, she appeared in Vogue, and on the runways of New York, Milan, London, and Paris---modeling for Halston, Valentino, and Chanel. Inheriting her father’s creative force, she launched her own line of cosmetics, worn by Princes Diana, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Rivers, and Oprah Winfrey. She later crafted handmade leather handbags and jewelry from her Sedona studio.  

A longtime global advocate for animals and the environment, Beatrice continues to champion organizations making a difference. She is a founding member of the Animal Foundation, and a pioneer of T-N-R—Trap, Neuter, Return, for feral cats in Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii. I’m delighted to welcome this generous global environmental and animal rights activist to this episode of Intrinsic Drive ®.

 Intrinsic Drive ®.  is produced by Ellen Strickler and Phil Wharton and Andrew Hollingworth  is sound editor and engineer. 

Transcript

Phil Wharton 
A lifetime of training. Practice, study hard work through discipline, some achieve excellence, mastery, fulfillment, self-actualization. What can we learn from their beginnings, discoveries, motivations, and falls? How do they dust themselves off and resume their journey? During these interviews, stories and conversations, we reveal their intrinsic drive. Beatrice Mori Gerfalco Wells, has devoted her extraordinary life to a multitude of humanitarian causes. In addition to her tireless dedication to the preservation of her father, Orson Wells' work. In 2018, she co-created and co-starred in the eyes of Orson Wells, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, the sole heir of the Orson Wells estate. Her vigilant works include overturning Turner Broadcasting's attempt to colorize Citizen Kane, her father's masterpiece, the most studied film of all time. She has curated Orson's artwork, personal correspondence, and scripts at the University of Michigan's special collections library. Young Beatrice grew up traveling, living around the globe with her closely knit nuclear family.

This reluctant childhood actress never wished to follow in her father's colossal footsteps to the stage and screen, encouraged by her papa to work and follow her passions. She was gifted a horse for her birthday on the set of Orson's favorite film Chimes at Midnight, in which Beatrice appeared a rising star in international equestrian competitions. She purchased former race horses, training them for show jumping a severe knee dislocation, halted her riding career. At Fourteen, she pivoted to modeling. In the era before the lucrative supermodel contracts, she appeared in Vogue and on the runways of New York, Milan, London, and Paris. Modeling for Halston, Valentino, and Chanel inheriting her father's creative force. She launched her own line of cosmetics, worn by Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Rivers, and Oprah Winfrey. She later crafted handmade leather handbags and jewelry from her Sedona Studio, A longtime global advocate for animals and the environment. Beatrice continues to champion organizations making a difference. She's a founding member of the Animal Foundation and pioneer of Trap, Neuter, Return for feral cats in Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii. I'm delighted to welcome this generous global environmental and animal rights activist to this episode of Intrinsic Drive.

Beatrice Welles
I first wanna talk about you because I met you and as I say, I don't know what, 2008, something like that. And I met you when I basically couldn't walk. I, something happened to my back and I had been laying flat on my father's old desk, which was a huge table. And I was on that table for a month and I could not move. And thank God for a mutual friend who suggested you. And you literally got me walking again. And I'm so grateful to you for that. And I want everybody to know how amazing you are. How amazing you are at your craft and your work. You're extraordinary. You can pay me later it's fine.

Phil Wharton
Unmarked one hundred dollar bills.

Beatrice Welles
No, no I'll take a check I trust you. It's great to talk to you. I'm so glad you're doing this.

Phil Wharton
Great to be with you. Yes, me too So lets,

Beatrice Welles
It really is, where do we start? Seriously

Phil Wharton
Let's go to your beginning where do you

<laugh>.

Let's go to the beginning of your journey. Take us to that inciting moment that you begin.

Beatrice Welles
Well, I began because of course I would have to. I began at a party. I was almost born at a party in New York. I was two months early and my parents had gone to Lenny Lyons. Lenny Lyons was a very, very famous columnist in the days when everybody followed what columnist says, like people say social media nowadays. It's the same thing. He used to have a daily column in, I think it was the Post when the Post was a good newspaper, long time ago. And they were very good friends who went to a cocktail party there. And suddenly my mother went into labor and everybody from that party, I think it was over a hundred people, came to the hospital. Oh my gosh. And my father continued. But they brought the booze. They continued this party all night long while my mother was in labor. And I arrived the next morning. So yeah, I was enjoying myself at a party. I'm out. I'm out. I'm here.

Phil Wharton
That is so Bibi that is so you.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah it is, isn't it? I know. So that was the beginning. And then after that it was travel. I was very, very fortunate that my parents did not want to put me in a boarding school because that's where I would've ended up. Because they, I thought they traveled so much and my mother with him, and they wanted me with them. So I was very fortunate. And I traveled literally the world. The world, and lived in many places, not just visited and was with them 24/7. So they were my best friends. We had a relationship that it was very unusual. If you think about it. There was the three of us, even though of course I had a nanny and all that stuff that people do, especially in those days. But it was the three of us. You know what I mean? And it really was the three of us forever until he died. And it was a strange relationship in that way. I don't know if strange is the right word, but we were very close. And was I schooled? I'd like to say that I was homeschooled. Yes. I remember having an Italian teacher, Francesca Bevilaqua, I'll never forget her name, who taught me how to read, Bevilaqua drink water. Yeah. It's a beautiful name. She was a lovely, lovely woman. I remember her very well.

Phil Wharton
Beautiful name. Bevilaqua, drink water.

Yes, drink water. And she taught me how to read and write and add in Italian. Of course we were, that time we were living just outside of Rome. And then when we moved to Spain, I got some Spanish teaching. In other words, I learned history in Spain and all that stuff. It's not that I learned the language, obviously I was young. I picked up the language. When you're young, wherever you are, you pick them. You pick up those languages so quickly. Yeah. You don't even know that you've done it. And then let's say from the age of twelve on <laugh>, was there schooling? I remember a lot of Shakespeare reading with a lovely teacher called Mr. Smallwood. Why do I remember? And I remember my Spanish teacher, Carmen Archia. I know them all. Robert Smallwood. Yeah. There's that weird? Here's the old lady who's lost her mind.

Phil Wharton
No, it's very sharp I told you.

Two minutes ago. No, no, I have moments. But I remember all three of them. But yeah, so my education was not, I guess what I learned, I learned traveling the world and I had a father that was an extraordinary man. He wasn't a teacher. He never told me what to do. He never guided me in any way. He was a terrible father that way. Terrible father. But he was the best father in the world in other ways. Do you know what I mean? As a father, he was never meant to be a father. Do you know what I mean? I was just his, we were in love with each other. We were totally in love with each other. I mean, I went with him everywhere. Everywhere he went. I was there from the age of about four until till finally I said no, I need to get away from you two. Well you do do, you know.

Phil Wharton
What about yourself as an actor, kind of when you are rising in your craft? I know that at five, that was the first production of Chimes. I think that was an Irish production, if I'm not mistaken?

Beatrice Welles
Yeah, that was on stage. Yeah, on stage. I just came out and waved at the public or something. Can't remember. I was like three and a half of four. And that was my first, yeah. Ok. No, no, I've never wanted to act. I was in Chimes at Midnight. I was in a documentary that he did first and then I was in Chimes at Midnight. And I never wanted to, I mean I never wanted to act, it was just not my calling. But he promised me money, which of course he never paid me. And so I did Chimes <laugh>

Phil Wharton
Ever the scoundrel like Falstaff, huh?

Beatrice Welles 
Yes, exactly. I was, that was his little page boy. And I was supposed to be in every scene, but then I got rheumatic fever while after we, in the middle of shooting this thing. So I had a much bigger part. And of course suddenly I was put in bed for nine months because that was what they did then to save your heart. So I had actually had a double at the age of nine in Chimes of Midnight, because I couldn't finish the movie. And they would drag me out of bed sometimes and put me on a pillow to say a couple of lines and then drive me back home and put me back to bed.

Phil Wharton
Oh my gosh. So they used the double at the end. I didn't realize that.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah, yeah. No, it was that. Yeah. Yeah. And it also, I just loved the movie and I was always on set. So I missed every, no, not everything, but I missed a big chunk of it. But to tell you how close we all were as a family, as a unit, whatever it is, they moved their living room into my room. So dinner parties, whatever. I mean, I was part of it. Even though I was sitting in bed, I was part of it. So I never felt left out. I mean it was sad because my father bought me my first horse. Oh, first and last. No, no. He bought me another horse. That's right. I forgot in Vegas. But because my passion has always been horses. And he bought me the horse, and I got rheumatic fever literally a week after. So I never got to ride my horse.

So that was the saddest part for me, was the saddest part. The second one was not being around while the movie was being made or most of it because I liked it so much. I mean, I would say half of it I was on set, but the other half I was in bed. So that's my acting and that's where it ends. I don't think I did anything else that I can remember. I told you that my memory isn't very good for certain things, but no, that's it. I never wanted to act. I saw my father and I just always thought it was hard. And I don't mean hard work, I just saw him. He suffered a lot. He had a lot of problems with people backing out at last minute with movies and not backing him and all that stuff. So I saw a saw different side to it and I didn't want anything to do with it. You know what I mean? I really didn't. It's Interesting that I ended up the last 40 years of my life being involved in it, because of him dying, and because of me being the only one to take care of all of this mess that he left <laugh>

Phil Wharton
Definitely. And championing that, being the champion of his legacy there.

But if you love someone so much as I love my father. How could you not want do it? It wasn't an issue.There wasn't a thought of, oh well I'm not going to do that. I had an incredible career. I was already successful. But I was on the wave to being very successful, and I had to give it up. And I didn't even think about it. I didn't because I knew that this is what I had to be done and there was nobody else. And that's what I did. And it's been hard. It's been very wonderful in moments. But it's been very, very hard because all I've ever tried to do is, and this is what I've tried to do, is to do what I think he would've done, if he was in my situation with his work. And it's easy to talk about this if you own it, but he didn't own anything. He sold everything he ever made. And he only ever made 13 movies. But everything he ever made, he sold so he could have enough money to make another movie.

Phil Wharton
Right. Because he's all about the art and going back into creation.

Beatrice Welles
Exactly. And he spent his life hustling, trying to make people pay for his movies. Which is the big mystery of why this man who is so admired by the industry and is a God in certain places that nobody ever wanted to back him. Ever. I mean, people who have come out publicly saying, I would never have been a director had I not seen Orson Wells' movies or whatever. I mean from Spielberg to Dick Fisher to, to a ton of people. And would they ever back him in anything? No. No. Then it's so bizarre. That makes no sense. So it's always been tough.

Phil Wharton
I saw an interview with Charlton Heston had said that with Touch of Evil. And he said he came back, the script was terrible. He came back and said, I knew he was going to rewrite it. I knew he was going to do the whole thing. He did it in three weeks, which is unheard of. And then he came in exactly on schedule, which Heston continued. That he always did. And why they would not back him, that's right, is still a mystery to both Orson and myself at the time of that interview. It was they couldn't reconcile. They didn't know why.

Beatrice Welles
Just bizarre. He had this reputation and we really, none of us know where it stems from. I mean, I'm sure he was late with certain things. God, nobody is perfect. But he had this terrible reputation, which really was not true. That was not true. But that's life. So back to that thing. This is what I lived with him and I lived it because I was so close to them. It wasn't just my father. You know what I mean? So I lived this, it was part of my life. So there was no attraction to that at all.

Phil Wharton
Yes, that makes sense. Totally. Because you saw the light and the dark of it. You saw him, the darkness of that other side of having to deal with all these just roadblocks in the path.

Beatrice Welles
The interest, and I'll tell you a funny story. I don't think I've ever told anybody this. I guess he, I grew up, yeah. Because I had such a bizarre life. And I was in doing in front of an editing machine. They were called Moviolas in my day or his day whatever or, and movie sets, whatever. But I never, yeah, I used to say, yeah, my father is in movies, in the movie business. That was it. And then when we moved to America where people are much more, I don't know what the right word is, but they just walk straight up to him and point and say, oh, it's Orson Wells, in his face kinda thing. You know what I mean? And I remember being just shocked by it, because they didn't do that in Europe then they might do it now. But I remember that we were in Las Vegas and we were seeing, I think it was Shirley McLean. We went to see Shirley McLean, my mother, my father and I.

We walked into the room, the big showroom at Ceasers, it was at Caesars Palace. And suddenly everybody starts applauding. And I go to my mother, oh my God, we're late. The show started. And then I thought, no, the lights are still on. And then everybody stood up and was applauding and I'm going, what are they doing? And I realized then that they were applauding my father. I was blown away. I couldn't believe it. I said my God, they know him, they admire him. I was in shock. And of course I burst into tears. Cause you know me, I'm so sensitive, I mean it was just, but he was just the most extraordinary, and I was twenty two.

Phil Wharton
Wow. Yeah. Already. Okay.

Beatrice Welles
This didn't happen when I was 10. This happened when I was 22. So for 22 years of my life, I had zero idea of what my father meant to other people. Because in those days, obviously if the whole of Caesar's Palace showroom stands up and gives him a standing ovation <laugh>. Absolutely. Just for walking in. He is admired. I was <laugh>. Yeah. So that shows you a, in a way, what a sheltered life I had. Even though I was exposed to so much.

Phil Wharton
Yeah. But you were right inside the craft. I mean it speaks to

Beatrice Welles
Yes, I was

Phil Wharton
The living room coming into your bedroom.

Beatrice Welles
And true yeah. But he never, he also didn't talk about him himself in that way. You know what I mean? He was so, yes. He had an ego. Of course he had an ego. But he was very un egotistical about, he was very humble about his work. Yes, very. And he was that in life, you see that in interviews and you think, well, he might be just saying it. No, no, no. That was truly him. Yeah. So to experience that was extraordinary. So that was <laugh>. Hello. Welcome to the world of Orson Wells in America. Or the world that you just didn't know.

Phil Wharton
That's right. And that feels like the discovery, Beatrice, I mean, you're learning this thing through seeing the of the iconic piece of your father. And what new things came to light at that point? Who besides was your father, the main mentor? Well, who were other coaches and teachers and what was revealed in that? Or was it just in that mono world of the three of you that you created?

Beatrice Welles
It was just the three of us. It was always just the three of us. I think that's when they died. Because they died very close together. It was my whole world. I mean, it would be anybody's of course. If your parents died within, what, 10 months of each other?

Phil Wharton
10 months.

Phil Wharton
10 months or something, I don't remember what It was, and both were unexpected, you know what I mean? It wasn't like any long illnesses or anything. It was like shock. Anybody of course would suffer. But for me it was world. I felt, I felt like I was this little girl still in a glass bubble. And the glass broke when they died. And I was suddenly in this world that I was, it was just so different. And no, I wasn't. And I wanna make something very clear. BecauseI was not spoiled by my father. My mother tried, <laugh> tried, but my father never let her. But I was never spoiled in materialistic things. Never bought me things. He bought me that horse. He bought it on my ninth birthday because he hated birthdays. First of all, he hated birthdays. Really? And he never celebrated them. Oh he Hated them. But he never celebrated them. But the only, the reason is that his mother died two days before his ninth birthday.

Phil Wharton
Okay. Okay. That makes sense.

Beatrice Welles
So the ninth birthday was huge. So this was the only gift I've ever gotten from my father for a birthday. And that was this horse. And he knew, so it was such a big thing. Yes. So now here's the old lady. I have no idea why I went off talking about this. I was talking about, oh, oh no, not spoiling me. Right, right. So no materialistic things apart from that horse. And then he bought me another horse in Las Vegas when he moved us all to Las Vegas. And I, you know this was 1978 in Las Vegas. Can you imagine?

Phil Wharton
Wow.

Beatrice Welles
Oh my God. It was the armpit of the world. I mean, I bet. It was just indescribable there was just, and I was, whatever, twenty one, twenty, I don't know what I was 21, I think twenty two, twenty two.

Phil Wharton
Twenty two in Las Vegas, with a horse, in the dustbowl.

Beatrice Welles
In the dustbowl. But we had finally bought a house. This was the first house he's bought since Madrid. So while I was alive, he bought two houses in his whole life. Ok. If not, we rented or we lived in hotels, which was fine. But this house was in a place where it had stables and you could have a horse. So to keep me in Las Vegas, because I said I'm not staying, I'm sorry.

Phil Wharton
<laugh> here was the bait.

Beatrice Welles
I couldn't work, there was nothing for me to do. They wanted, yeah. I found a job being a, oh, I don't know what they call, they call them casino host. No I don't know. A casino hostess. Which means that when the high rollers come in, you entertain them. In other words, you take them, you book the restaurants, you take them to the this, you do this.

Phil Wharton
Like a concierge service.

Beatrice Welles
It's a yes. And they're called, I think they're called some

Phil Wharton
Casino host maybe?

Beatrice Welles
 Something like that. I think it's, yeah. Yeah. Now what

Phil Wharton
Do you remember the casino? You remember the casino you were at?

Beatrice Welles
It was the Dunes. It was the Dunes.

Phil Wharton
No way. The Dunes.

Beatrice Welles
Yes, the Dunes. And because the thing we knew the general manager, we ended up knowing the general manager because they lived next door. In Las Vegas, you've gotta remember that general managers are like huge. I mean, they're it's not like a general manager of the Four Seasons here in, in wherever Venice or wherever you wanna call, these people are considered whatever. So this job, and I said, because I spoke the two languages and they had a, at that time in the seventies, there was a lot of Mexicans coming to Vegas and gambling. And I was going to be paid quite a lot of money. It was. But I just thought, my God, I'm going to die. This is not for me. 

Phil Wharton
So, wasn't your calling.

Beatrice Welles
So he tried got me out, bought me a horse. And that kept me another six months. And I just said, I'm sorry. And that was it. But that, that's no materialistic, no materialistic gifts. None. Enormously spoiled with everything else. I mean, spoiled with attention, spoiled with just being part of his life or part of their life. I must say their, because it was always the two of them. It's just that he and I would go off and do things together. We would go to movies together. We would go to shows together. I mean, I used to go to the West End all the time and see shows with him, just the two of us. It was fun.

Phil Wharton
That's really amazing.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah. I mean he was so, that's it. I mean there's more <laugh>. I could go on and on and on and on and on and on about him.

Phil Wharton
And from there did you? When did the modeling begin? The modeling? Well, the modeling, the runway work.

Beatrice Welles
The modeling, that started really when I was very young. I started when I was fourteen and I lied. I said I was fifteen, but it was just <laugh>. I had, I was, well I wasn't there that yet, but I always looked much older than what I was. So fifteen, I got away with fifteen at fourteen. And I did a little modeling. But I was show jumping, and I was show jumping very seriously. I was jumping internationally. I bought my own horses. I bought them amazingly, cheap. And that was the most fun part. I used to buy cheap horses because you used to be able to do that in England, in those days you could buy old racehorses, not flat racehorses, but steeplechasers or

Phil Wharton
Hunter jumper's

Beatrice Welles
And for nothing. I mean literally for nothing. And then you'd have the potential of working them and seeing if they can, could become show jumpers. And most of them did. And some I sold. So it was my life. I mean, that was completely my life. Dislocated my knee, who as you well know, I've now dislocated 27 times during my lifetime. And it's still here.

And I had to stop riding because that was 1972. And in 1972 I was sixteen. And in 1972 there just wasn't laser, there was nothing. I went to rugby specialists and my father sent me here there. There was really. I was put in a cast and said, you can never ride again. So yeah, I was devastated. I mean, that was probably one of the most devastating things that ever happened to me. Because it was my life, my passion. It would've been my career. And to be suddenly told at sixteen that it, it's over forever. You know, you just go, my God. So I started modeling more seriously. I took it more seriously because I was already doing it now and again. So seriously I started at sixteen. At sixteen, and in those days, modeling was very different. You know there weren't supermodels. I mean Twiggy was the supermodel, and Veruska, was a supermodel, and Jean Shrimpton was a supermodel, they weren't called supermodels. They weren't making the kind kind of money that these girls started making in the eighties and nineties. It was very different. Very different. I mean, when you worked for Vogue in England, it didn't matter who you were, you got paid five guineas, which was five pounds and five shillings in those days. For one day's work.

Phil Wharton
For one day. Wow.

Beatrice Welles
A whole day working. Well it didn't matter who you were, that's what they paid. It was Vogue's. Of course everybody wanted to do it. But it was different. And I didn't like photographic work much. I much preferred to, oh, now we have somebody, I'm sitting outside everybody, and now we have somebody blowing leaves.

Beatrice Welles
Because obviously I was being very boring about liking fashion shows more than I did photographic work. But I never took it seriously. Modeling was not something that I particularly liked. It was a way of making money. Because my father always wanted me to make money. And when I, oh my car, that's a good story. I'll tell you about my car. Tell me, because that's a very funny story and it's a story that really pissed him off when I was seventeen. You have to be seventeen in England to be able to drive. I said I need a car. I had my horse. We were still all living in London. My horses were in the country and I was no, it was sixteen. I'm sorry sixteen. When you can get the thing. And my horses were still in the country. So this is before the accident.

Phil Wharton
Before Las Vegas.

Beatrice Welles
Yes. And I'd like a car. I said anything, I don't care. I just need to be able. Because yeah. Then I was getting in a bus, going to the train, going to Waterloo Station, getting on the train and driving all the way down to Surrey, and then being picked up at the thing. I mean it

Phil Wharton
So a two hour commute just to get to the stable.

Beatrice Welles
Oh easy just to get to the stable. So I really needed a car. This was, yeah, no, you want a car, you have to earn it yourself. Oh my God, how am I going to do that? I was making enough money with selling the horses, to keep the horses and that's about it. So it just happened at a very dear friend of mine invited me for dinner and we went to Annabel's, which is it's still there. It's a nightclub in London that you can also eat. And up above is a casino, which is members only. It's a very she she casino. It's called a Claremont Club. It's all to do with Annabelle's. And he belonged and he said, I wanna go up and gamble and I hate gambling. I said, okay. So he's playing roulette, and I'm sitting behind him thinking this is so boring. And he said, oh, come on, play. So he gave me a five pound chip. I put the five pound chip on my favorite number, which is 13 because I was born on the 13th. That's Right. And of course it came up<laugh>. All right. And I left the money there and it came up again.

Phil Wharton
Whoa Ok.

Beatrice Welles
Oh it was unbelievable. It was like, you know everybody was in shock. So suddenly I had whatever, I had a thousand pounds, which in that those days was quite a lot of money. We're talking whatever it was, 1972.

Phil Wharton
Absolutely.

Beatrice Welles
So rushed out and bought myself a used Fiat 500, and another horse.

Phil Wharton
That's why you have the affinity for the Fiat. When I was in Sedona

Beatrice Welles
It was my first car. It was my first car.

Phil Wharton
You had gotten a remake of that old 500.

Beatrice Welles
Yes. And the same color. The same color.

Phil Wharton
That's right. That was so great.

Beatrice Welles
Oh, I love that car. I love that car. And of course when I told him, oh he was so angry because it took me a week. I didn't even plan it. But you just like. And I just went out gambling

Phil Wharton
Manifested it Dad, manifested it.

Beatrice Welles
Yes. And he thought, God knows she's going to have to work for it and it's going to take a years, whatever. Right. She'll learn her lesson. I dunno what lesson I was supposed to learn is that I did it. That one, he was just livid. Yeah he was so angry . Oh my gosh.

So my childhood was full of bizarre, strange things, but lots of love. I mean, there was an enormous amount of love in our family and always between all three of us, between the two of them. And of course being with each one of them. So that's the most important thing in life.

Phil Wharton
Absolutely. And I think you've taken us to, as we go in the show into the fall, the speed bumps. And I know you've had so many that wasn't

Beatrice Welles
But everybody has.

Phil Wharton
Absolutely.

Beatrice Welles
You know what Phil, everybody has. This is something that I look at my life and I think, my God, I've been in the worst places and it's been so hard. We all have, it's all relative and it's all different. People have this idea that, you know, are going to just, life is the white picket fence, which is not hello.

Phil Wharton
Right. Just a bowl of cherries

Beatrice Welles
Everybody. Yes, I mean it's all right when till you're about three maybe. And then it all changes. And people have this idea. They look at a Kim Kardashian or whoever you wanna look at who you aspire to be. I'm talking about these young people and they have no idea. I don't think Kim Kardashian has a great life. I think she has a really, really hard time. Like we all do. Yes. Stress yeah. Oh, now we've got a helicopter flying over. But no, so did I. Yes, of course. So did everybody else. It's just the way it is. And I wish we would sort of wake up to this thing that life is not the bowl of cherries and let's be more prepared for it if we can. But I don't know if we can. But this thing about coddling children and about, oh no, no, what are they going to do when they face real life? That's right. If they never no say no to a child, what do you mean? Never say no to a child? It's what happens when they suddenly go out in the world and somebody does say no to them.

Phil Wharton
That's right. In this lack of parenting. And I love how your father was strong about you making your own way in the world. Yes. Because you've always been that way. You're so generous. And you can see why there wasn't any of these lavish gifts. Because whenever you have something, that's what at first, so attracted me to you when you were just giving, giving to people in need. And that kind of speaks to your the global animal rights activism that, were all the foundations and the work you were doing in the spay trap neuter arena and creating that technology. So that, I want to get to, but it just seems like there's so many pivots as we use in this show, that you were able to steer yourself back on course just after the fall of the knee injury when you were riding on into pivoting to modeling.

Beatrice Welles
Well you realize when things like that happen in life, those shocks when my parents were killed and yes. Well I'm sorry my mother was killed. My father died of the heart attack and all that stuff. If somebody would tell you that that's going to happen to you, you're going to say, nah, I'm just, forget it. Right. Lock me up now. I'm never going to be able to cope with it. And instead, you do. You cope with things and you think, my God, that's amazing. How did I do that? I look back on certain things and because you do, and we all do have to if we're going to survive or try and make this life as good as we can. And I think when you talk about giving to me giving, and please, I don't wanna sound like a saint because that's the last thing I am. But giving is, an enormous one of the biggest pleasures for me is to be able to give. And that is for me, for me, it's not for the other person or whatever. It gives me this enormous pleasure to be able to do that. I've always wanted to be extremely rich because I know that I would be able to do so much good with the money. Absolutely. Because I love to give, but that's why I'm not rich, because I love to give <laugh>. The real rich people don't give anything.

Phil Wharton
Yeah, no that's what was so breathtaking and beautiful at the same time. And heart wrenching to see. Wait because you were giving everything away, I said Beatrice wait a minute, wait a minute. We've got rent here coming up in the Sedona Place and you've got these bills to pay and you can't just give everybody everything. It is just, but it was incredible how you were able, you really wanted to do that.

Beatrice Welles
Well, that period was also when I had probably the most money I've ever had in my entire life. So it, so it's just very natural and very satisfying for me to do.

Phil Wharton
Yes.

Beatrice Welles
And I think that we talked, we vaguely talked about the animal stuff, and my animal work, and that's part of it. That's also giving. And I love to do that. And as I said, I'm no saint, it's not it's that's my DNA that's in my, you know what I'm made out of. Some people are, some people, they get their kicks outta something else. I get my kicks outta giving and helping. And I always feel in my animal work now, I've found that now because I'm much older, because I have various pains and issues and I can't do the things that I used to be able to do, especially in the animal work. So I can't do them myself. So what I try and do is I try and help the people who do help animals. And I try and help the small people, the people that are doing extraordinary work in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Kabul. I'm thinking of the people that I try and help. These either individuals or tiny organizations who you don't know how to do that?How do you survive in Kabul, and have an animal rescue and a big one and how do you do that? But they do, these and these are the people that I like to help.

Phil Wharton
Did you feel the early inspiration was your mother's work in animal rescue and your father's love of animals? Was that, were those early inspirations for your longtime work is an activist in the animal rescue?

Beatrice Welles
I don't know. I just know that I grew up surrounded by animals and we were constantly rescuing wherever we went, all the travels. We never flew anywhere unless we absolutely had to <laugh> because both my parents hated flying. So we always took a ship or a train and if you take a ship and a train, you can smuggle <laugh> dogs and cats much easier than you can on a plane. So we, every time we went somewhere in some country, we would always come back with something that we'd rescued from some. So it was incredibly normal to also have a ton of animals too. Whenever we had a place where we could, and we did, had my mother's house in, which was outside Rome, which was left to her by her father, which was lovely. It's really by, right by the sea. And it was a base, even though we really were very rarely there, we, there was people working in the house and so we had animals, what I'm saying, and we could leave them because there were people to look after them. Then when we started traveling and not having the base anymore, we had to stop doing that. We had our two or three animals that we took with us everywhere, but we couldn't rescue. You know what I mean? It was okay if we did. We had to find a home wherever we rescued it from. But it was in my genes. I don't, I don't know what to say. So I can't think of not rescuing an animal.

Phil Wharton
That makes so much sense now. Because if it was so much in the fiber of just growing up, and animal husbandry was like, okay, there's a stray here. Somebody needs this animal needs help. Okay, we're just going to smuggle in the bag. And that's it.

Beatrice Welles
That's what we did. Oh, that's what my parents, my father did it as much as my mother. So I just think that my mother, father probably always wanted to do it and didn't do it enough. But then with my mother who actually did it, it kind of opened up a door <laugh> a portal for him to do it openly and as well. You know what I mean? But my love for animals is deep. It always has been. And I put the two together, this upbringing where my parents rescued everything. It's logical that it's something that I would continue. And I always wanted to do that, but I was never able to because I was never able financially to be able to dedicate myself to that.

Phil Wharton
There's a long list though. I mean, Beatrice I mean you established the first lowcost spay and neuter clinic in the US. I mean, you established and supported spay and neuter services.

Beatrice Welles
I didn't Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Wait, wait, now

Phil Wharton
Rolda, and all these things. And then your foundation Voices for the Voiceless. I remember when in the Wind Song Trailer Park Cats, when you were working with so many of these feral cats when I first met you.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah, I did the Holo Sedona. I was, yeah, that was a very good three years, four no longer, ended up being five years of work. Yeah, no, there've been some wonderful things. But I was just free. I was also lucky I the low cost spay and neuter clinic, I mean, that wasn't my idea. I wish it had been, I was just very lucky to be around at the right time with four other people who thought the same as me. And we were lucky. We had Bill Bennett who used to own Circus Circus in Las Vegas and he gave us then, Yeah, he was an animal lover. He gave us $500,000 in 1986. Now that's a hell of a lot of money. Yes. He didn't give it to us in one chunk. He gave it to us over a five year period. But we all looked at each other and said, what could we do to really make the difference? And nobody was doing, spaying and neutering was just not a solution. You know what I mean?

Phil Wharton
Yeah. And this is the animal foundation that you helped create with four others and in Las Vegas.

Beatrice Welles
Yes, exactly. And then it became very big and very successful. And sadly we decided that we needed to do something else. It was a long story. It's not that we needed to do something else. We needed to do in addition to that we needed to do, because people needed to see animals. Do you know what I mean? They, to give, to donate spaying and neutering, then what do you show? You really can't show anything. People wanted to see the cute little kitten, the little puppy. Yes, exactly. And so we then moved on into sadly becoming an animal shelter as well, continuing with the work. But when you do that, when thin yourself out, you kind of lose yourself a bit. I wish we hadn't have done that.

Phil Wharton
Diffuse it became too diffused. Yeah.

Beatrice Welles
Yes. Too much. Also, we became the city shelter, which was just staggering. I mean, I can't begin to tell you what that was like, but now I've found with age, I really am, I've become more, what's the right word? I really can't see awful things. I mean, I've never been able to see the really bad things, but I've been able to watch some sort things and not get too upset, or get upset and able to handle it. Now, forget it, anything. It's just, no, don't show it to me. I'll just try and help you all I can, which I do. I send medicines. I'm not saying that I just help financially, but I send medicines to countries where they can't get certain things. I help somebody in Venezuela who can't get anything. She does all the street dogs there. Those are the things that I can do now. And I don't know if they help a lot, but it makes me feel that I'm still doing some work. You know what I mean?

Phil Wharton
Well, we'll get a list in the liner notes, Beatrice of all the credible organizations that you're currently looking to link into and help and give resources so that we can put the word out to.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah well also, not just, and it's really all animals. I don't just do cats, dogs or pets. I mean, no, I know that wildlife right now, I mean, I've been very much involved with an orca, which is at the Miami Sea Aquarium. And if you Google, Lolita Orca.

You won't believe what you will read. She has been there for 52 years, which is the long, I think she's the longest now in captivity. They usually last about 10 years. Most even though they live to be over a hundred in the wild. And her story is just, I, I've been following her now for three years and it's just, these are the things that I do try and help. I try to get Cher involved in it. I've tried. I try wherever I can think of, if I can help somewhere, that's what I try and do nowadays because I can't do anything hands on. Apart from helping the little people or the small organizations around the world. I also try and, whatever crosses my path that I can help with, that's what I try and do. If I didn't do that, I'd go crazy. I would go, if I couldn't help animals, I would go really bananas.

Phil Wharton
No, I know. It's still a part of you and it's such a beautiful gift that you give. Is that Alex Pachecos 600 million dogs? Is that still active? I know you were a board member of that.

Beatrice Welles
Very active. And Alex is really one of my closest dearest friends. Crazy as a bat. But I love him. And Alex is an extraordinary person. I mean, not only did he co-found PETA, with Ingrid and like PETA or not, I'm not a member and I don't follow PETA, but I have to admire Peter. Absolutely. Because it's opened our eyes to many things that we were not aware of

Phil Wharton
Animal atrocities. Absolutely.

Beatrice Welles
That we are totally, we didn't even know were happening. And he's got this wonderful thing about this. It does exist. This, it's a pill. It can be made into a chew into whatever that sterilizes dogs. But it actually, it started off as a rat thing to a rat control as everything in life on this planet. Every animal that exists, there's a reason for it. Even rats. That's right. They take care of certain things. Everybody thinks, oh, rats are just useless. We don't need.

Phil Wharton
They're part of the ecosystem.

Beatrice Welles
They're part of everything. Especially nowadays in cities. Rats take care of certain things. So to try and eliminate all of them never works anyway. So if you try and control them through, again, it's spay and neuter, except that this is a pill, like a chew, they eat it. The taste of nothing. And they become sterile. I mean it's that simple. And if they happen to be pregnant when they eat this, all their babies will be born sterile as well.

Phil Wharton
Okay.

Beatrice Welles
So it's extraordinary. Now you back yet, now he's very complicated because you're dealing with a lot of people who don't want this to happen because they feel it's going to affect their income. Do you know what I mean? And I'm not going to mention names or anything cause there are no names to mention. But people think that if we're going to sterilize the street dogs of India, that the vets are going to go out of business, which is just ridiculous. You know what I mean? The most ridiculous thing. Other side. So there's always this. Always something where it shouldn't be. Yeah, there are too many animals, there's too many of us, and the world is in a mess.

Phil Wharton
Yeah

Beatrice Welles
And that's putting it mildly, my God.

Phil Wharton
And the trap, neuter, return that you spearheaded and helped develop that protocol in Nevada and Hawaii and Arizona, is that still a program that's moving forward?

Beatrice Welles
Oh, that's been going on forever.

Phil Wharton
So, that's become the gold standard now, of course.

Beatrice Welles
Oh absolutely. That started originally in England back in, I think it was the sixties, when they first started realizing that if they did that they could control the cat population, which is as bad as the rat population in any city. Mean we just don't see them because. A, they're terrified of us, and they're nocturnal. We don't see them. If you see one feral cat or two, you know there's at least thirty or forty that you're not seeing in that place.

Phil Wharton
Well, that was all the irregularity of you guys. You guys were always going out in the middle of the night with teams mobilizing. I was always trying, Beatrice, you've gotta get your rest to heal this back pain. And I was always like, you're doing this whole reverse of nocturnal yourself, because you were going out so much in the middle of the night. And I remember that work.

Beatrice Welles
Well. But trap, neuter, return is very important for so many reasons. And nobody wants feral cats. And people who work in T-N-R, which is trap, neuter, return. What they wanna see is the end of feral cats. Nobody wants to see a feral cat because it's a miserable life, and nobody needs them. It's the most unwanted animal because there's something very smart about cats. So you have a cat that breeds exactly like a rabbit. People don't understand that they can have up to four litter litters a year. Imagine. Yeah. I mean it's just crazy. And they're smart. So of course they're going to live and breed and all that stuff. So it's an awful thing. But it's so many animal issues and my advice to anybody who's doing anything, and it's a difficult one, is you really need to, my God, they're going to start blowing in my yard now. I'm sorry about this. No problem. Hopefully they'll stop. These yards are very small. So anyway is stick to one thing if you can. You know what I mean? Because anything in life, if you start wandering off here and wandering, I'm doing a bit of this and a bit of that. Your concentration, your efforts are, get diluted, you know you can't. So that would be my advice. I now do a little bit of everything because I'm not doing anything big at this moment. I probably won't anymore.

Phil Wharton
But you have some time to be able to, be a little bit more diffused into Exactly. Into having tenticles in other things.

Beatrice Welles
Exactly. But it's a never ending. It's never ending. And I, I'm now vegan, I was, and then I, oh my gosh, wasn't and I became vegan again. And it's, when you know about factory farming, where what's going on in the oceans, I mean the ocean is just, to me horrifying. Because if we lose the oceans, we die. We die before we lose anything on this earth. And there's nothing sustainable anymore. So that's one bit of advice. Anytime you see written a piece fish, whatever it is, and it says sustainably fish or whatever, it's impossible. Okay. Impossible. The way it's fishing is done nowadays. Unless it's a little local fisherman that, you know. Can you hear me? Do you want me to go inside?

Phil Wharton
No, you're coming through. You're coming through great. Oh good. No, no, absolutely. You're fine.

Beatrice Welles
It's so funny. I mean it's just this thing going on at full blast. I'm like really?

Phil Wharton
Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. No, I can hear you great. It's totally fine. Good. Yeah, yeah.

Beatrice Welles
Anyway, so that would be my only thing. If you care and you think that you're buying something and it says sustainable, it's not, it's impossible. Nothing can do your research, I mean it's not.

Phil Wharton
Research. I mean it's not,

Beatrice Welles
No, it just can't be anymore. No. In the ocean there's nothing sustainable. Unless, as I said, you're in a fishing village with a little fishing guy who knows, and goes out there.

Phil Wharton
They're going out themselves.

Beatrice Welles
Themselves, and then you're okay. But everything else is, what they use nowadays is terrifying. What they do, I, I think it's the squid boats, the calamari boats, whatever you wanna call <affirmative>, the ones that go out. And so much of it is happening in South America around all the oceans around South America. You can actually see the lights from these boats who are going deep into the ocean with these lights from the boat. The, it's the light is on the boat, the lights are on the boat so that they can see where to put these gigantic nets, that are miles and miles and miles of nets. I mean this is not, you know.

Phil Wharton
They're all dredging, they're just dredging the ocean there. Yeah,

Beatrice Welles
Exactly. But you can see these lights from outer space.

Phil Wharton
From space. That's right. I have read that. Yeah.

Beatrice Welles
That is unbelievable. Can you imagine that?

Phil Wharton
Yeah. And it's something like in terms of the environmental impact is something like eight to twelve million tons of plastic, finding its way from the estuaries from places like the Chesapeake, into the ocean annually.

Beatrice Welles
Unbelievable, unbelievable. No, I, plastic has to really stop to be made apart from things that have to be made out of plastic. But I'd say that 80% of the things that you, we and I, we And I, sorry. Hello. You and I <laugh>

Phil Wharton
You part of the mind <laugh>, the proverbial we, the royal we.

Beatrice Welles
The proverbial me. I know <laugh>. No, doesn't need to be in plastic. It just doesn't. And we, we've gotta stop. But I don't see any of it as happening. I, really don't. It's the scary part. It really don't see the big changes that need to be done. And all the scientists are saying it's all happening so much quicker than we could ever predict it.

Phil Wharton
That's right.

Beatrice Welles
And here we are, we have a terrible war going on with some horrible things happening. And the people in Europe are starting their coal mines up again, because they need the coal to keep warm. And what is that going to do to the environment. I mean it's just crazy. Instead of saying, this war has been going on now for what, seven months? Or is it eight? I can't remember now. Yeah,

Phil Wharton
Yeah, maybe even longer. Right around there, maybe even longer eight plus.

Beatrice Welles
You would think that by now people would say, okay, so now let's do something so we can use something else instead of this gas and oil and everything else that Russia supplies to us. You, you'd think that after all these months they would've thought of something and they haven't. So if you're not going to do it now, you're never going to do it. Do you know what I mean? To me, it just makes no sense.

Phil Wharton
Yeah. These are not renewable resources. This is No. Yeah.

Beatrice Welles
No. And they're going back to things that they have done in 40, 50 years because they have no other resources. And that's crazy. I mean, anyway, we know it's all crazy. And we could go on talking about that forever because, it's so big. For me it's the climate crisis because it affects the whole world. And this world is so beautiful. My God, this world is so beautiful. It's so beautiful And everything in it and how it works and how it is just, and to know that we are just destroying it and have been forever. And despite all our wishes and talking and everything else, we are really not doing much about it.

Phil Wharton
No, and that's why I love that we're going to put here on some of the things that are most important to you, in terms of the advocacy groups, and the foundations that you say, look, these are the doers, these are the people that you want to champion. And so that, that'll be really great because you've taken your time to go deep dive into these things that are really making a difference and the ones that are just not doing. When we look at some of your fathers, I know you've been so, such a champion of his work and that take us through some of the things that you'd like to leave with us in terms of the estate work that you do. I know you were able to overturn Turner, and they wanted to colorize Citizen Kane, colorized design yes, and you know, worked with Julian to restore Othello.

Take us to some of those moments for you that you're most proud of, that you most want to leave as doing the thing that he would want done, to continue the work.

Beatrice Welles
Well it, it's an odd question. Let me tell you why it's odd. Because I have never thought about what my father would like to leave behind, apart from his work. And there's been so little of his work that is available, because he didn't own anything, and because a lot of it has gone into public domain, or is ended up in, who knows where. I mean, we keep on finding things and hearing about things that he did, that we never knew about that went nowhere. You know what I mean? That he did a TV show, I mean he was thinking about TV back in the early sixties, and late fifties when people weren't, he was doing things. I think for him, if it were him, it would be just the work. And sadly, the only work that really remains is Citizen Kane, Magnificent Andersons, Chimes of Midnight, and Chimes at Midnight, without a doubt was his favorite movie.

Phil Wharton
Was it?

Yes. Oh by far, by far.

Phil Wharton
Makes sense. By thought to do the Henry's, I mean such a Shakespearean, a quintessential Shakespearean actor.

Beatrice Welles
Well, and you also think about it, he took five Shakespearean plays and made it into a 90 minute movie. That's right. I mean it's pretty extraordinary. It's extraordinary. And it is a lovely movie. But of course it's Shakespeare and not many people want to watch a black and white Shakespeare movie, which is, that was Othello was Shakespeare too. He loved Shakespeare. But what I tried to do in my lifetime in the last almost 40 years that, I have been looking after his legacy, because I that's all I can call it. When things have come up, I've tried to think about what he would've done, if he would've been in my place versus what I want. Because there's a lot of things that I would've liked to have done and I didn't do. And now I actually almost regret it because I think he's dead. Right. But one of my, and I think you remember this, one of my biggest things that I, and I was very close to doing, it was his museum in Spain.

Remember the museum? Yes. And Spain was the perfect place. Yes. That's where he is buried. It was the house. I mean it was just everything, and then the finances fell apart. And for a long time I had wanted to do a museum and an interesting one, not just about his work because there was so much that this man did in his life. He was such an activist. He did so much. But would he have wanted that? Oh my god, no. So for years I just didn't even think about it. I had a university and I'm not going to say which one, but they approached me, and they said we would like to do it like a wing. And I said, no, no, no, no. This was years before. And it's because I know he would've hated it. And then I finally said, now wait a minute, let's do the museum. This is a lovely thing and it's a beautiful and it was a beautiful place. Everything was perfect. So that was the only time that I ever really did something and it didn't happen anyway, because I'm sure he overlooks everything I do.

Phil Wharton
Yeah.

Beatrice Welles
Totally convinced he's still around. He's still around.

Phil Wharton
That makes sense.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah. Because

Phil Wharton
Yeah because, you were able to push back against what you felt he would've wanted in the Michigan project. Correct? In 2017 in that special collections library where you said, you know what this needs to be in a university. I'm going to sort of go against papa on this one and you move forward. I thought that was really fabulous that you.

Beatrice Welles
Well, I had it made sense, I had boxes and boxes of stuff that had been unopened, that we had kept in storage for years that came, not from my father, because my father didn't keep one single thing he did. Remember I said he never gave me material. He didn't believe in materialistic things. I mean that's right. When people talk about his Oscars. Yes. He left them behind. He didn't care. He absolutely didn't care about awards, he didn't care about anything. But in the end, it's nice for people to see this stuff. And so we had all his stuff in storage, in boxes never opened, that arrived in the sixties from Data Bernstein's widow Hazel. Data Bernstein was my father's, oh my God when somebody dies, the parents die.

Phil Wharton
Godfather?

Beatrice Welles
No, not Godfather. Looked after the finances, looked after his, cause my father came from a very good family and inherited a lot of money. I think that's why he never wanted to give me any, I really do. Cause he, yeah, he came from a very good family. I mean a lot of money and had an huge inheritance. Guardian, he was a guardian.

Phil Wharton
The guardian okay.

Beatrice Welles
He was a guardian. So Data kept a lot of the stuff that my father just was not interested in while my father lived in Beverly Hills, well he was in Hollywood making Kane, in the prolific years. So there were all this papers and stuff and I thought, what am I going to do with this? What am I going to do? Finally started opening it and that's when I said, okay, a university, and he would've hated that. But at least it's there. Anybody can go see it. They can see it virtually online. They can read anything. And that's what it should be. I mean, yeah. So in later years I did a few things, or at one at least I tried to do the other and it fell apart because of financing things that I wanted. Not just what he wanted, but any decision about a movie or about that. I've always thought about what I think he would've wanted. Yes. I felt that that was my job. I felt that that's what I owed him. Because I believe that friendships you owe people, you, that's what friendships are about. And people don't like that sound of it, but you know, you give and take.

Phil Wharton
That's right. The law of the universe should be golden. The golden rule.

Beatrice Welles
Exactly. And yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

Phil Wharton
What about The Other Side of the Wind, when you spearheaded that sort of coming into

Beatrice Welles
Well, not really. I wanted Other Side of the Wind, really had never anything to do with me. I mean they needed my permission but I didn't own it. I didn't have anything to do with it. They really wanted me because I could promote it and help them and all that kinda stuff. I was never really for it because I don't think anybody can finish my father's work. I don't care how good you are. And they had a wonderful editor. Bob Murawski, was a great editor and I'm very fond of him. I got to know him. But my father made his movies in the cutting room in the editor room. He always did. I saw him change a movie completely around. I mean, I remember I used to sit on his lap in front of the editor. I can remember then I got too big. I had to get a chair and sit next to him.But that was my life. I spent more time in the editing room than I did on sets. So I saw him do extraordinary things in the editing room. So for me, when somebody takes, I don't know how many thousands, literally hours there were of this movie over the years and tried to make it into a movie, I was always sort of against it because I never thought it was his movie. I thought it was written, I thought it was executed or what, how do you say that? I can't even say that. Executed exec. Executed? Yes, thank you I'm thinking an Italian I think. I don't know. Anyway, yes. But it wasn't his movie. It wasn't his movie. Completely. So what I always wanted to happen to that movie, and I was promised that it was going to be, and of course they never did. I thought that the Other Side of the Wind, would've been an incredible teaching tool for movie film schools. Yes. Because they could have raw footage of what Orson Wells had shot, have the script, and then they can cut it, and make it into what their vision would be.

Phil Wharton
So what a learning process that would be.

Beatrice Welles
I know because he is the most studied director in film school to this day. Yes. Still. And I thought, you've done your movie so you've made your money, whatever. I don't know if they made money or not. They probably did. I'm sure. Now what are you going to do with it? And they'll said, oh, we're going to give it to the academy. And I said, no you're not. Yeah, that's the last place I wanted to go. But anyway, I, it's just sitting in storage then they haven't done anything with it. And I'm so sorry because I was promised that I really thought that was going to happen. That they were going to offer it because, just to offer it to film schools, and film schools could do what they want with it. I mean, they could give prizes for the best three who came up with a move, whatever.I mean there's a ton of things that could have been done to make it exciting and not just a teaching tool. But it didn't happen. But that's Hollywood <laugh> the business and it's sucked. It is it, you know. That's why he ran away from here too. I mean they banned him, and then he came back, and they banded him again. And then he came back for a third time hoping that America would welcome him. And they never did. It's just such a bizarre thing. It's so weird that this man who was so admired and everything else in the business, that the business should have treated him as badly as they did. And they really did treat him badly. They really did. But no hard feelings. I mean, I don't have any hard feeling apart from the Academy, who I detest, but that's okay. <laugh>

Phil Wharton
Got to have a couple grudges here. No, take us into the story of you and Mark, and the co-creation in The Eyes of Orson Wells. Because it's such a beautiful journey into the creative force that your father had, and the vision and the sense of light and all these just years and years of sketches and journals that, yeah well.

Phil Wharton
Were those the ones that you had, and then you allowed Mark to?

Beatrice Welles
Oh, now all the art was mine. All the art that was in, and that was again, 90% of it was in those boxes of Data Bernstein, because we only had a few of the oil paintings, which I think had two or three and a couple of sketches. But he did nothing. He painted all the time. He drew all the time. All Christmas cards were made by hand, by him, all that kind of stuff. And when I met Mark, I met him. I was at the Michael Moore Film Festival, which hasn't happened now I think in two years. I think they had it finally again this year, because of Covid in God, where is it? It's in Massachusetts. No, no. Where, I don't even know where it is right now, Michigan, of course. It's in Michigan. And I went there because they were showing a couple of movies of my father and I spoke and blah blah blah blah. And I met Mark Cousins who was showing one of his movies there. And we just got along like a house on fire.

Phil Wharton
I would bet, I would imagine yeah.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah. It was 2016. So I had just opened the boxes, you know what I mean? Ok. The start and came across all this art, and I said I'd wanted to do something with this art. I wanted to do an exhibition, do this, do that, do a million things. That all also fell through. It didn't matter. The art was a total disaster. But what came of it was this wonderful movie because, Mark and I sat down, we got to know each other during the festival, and I talked about the art and said, oh my God, I haven't seen it. So he said, why don't we do a movie about that, about the art? Because yes, nobody has, and looking at how, because if you look at his movies, all of them, they're beautiful. I mean his shots are just breathtaking. Just really. And when you realize that he studied to be a painter, that he was a painter, that he loved to paint, you understand these images that you see on the screen, they're like a painting. And it makes sense. So with Mark's incredible sensitivity towards this work and my father's work in movies, and obviously the art work in the art, he was able to come up with this incredible, I think one of the most beautiful documentaries.

Phil Wharton
It's incredible.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah. Yeah. I really do. I just helped him here and there with some ideas. But it is totally his movie. I was just very lucky to be part of it.

Phil Wharton
When it came out. And I didn't know that you'd finally released it. And we just sat here at the farm and we just wept. We were just crying the whole time that it had come together, bringing this work, this incredible art, this sense of space and light that transcends time in that process, that artist process. So it took an artist to bring out that process that was so much about the craft.

Beatrice Welles
Exactly. But that's exactly it. And that's what my father, who was, people call him a genius. I guess he was, I mean God he hated that. Because he said Einstein was a genius. I'm not. And he's right, you know he was just a very intelligent man, with a very open mind. And I think that also came from his childhood. He traveled the world with his father. He had an incredible mother. His mother, my grandmother was the first woman elected official in Illinois. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh no. She was extraordinary. If you read up about my grandmother, she was this extraordinary woman. She was a suffragette. She helped, oh my God. She gave talk about giving, this woman gave to all the homeless people, and all the enormous, she was an extraordinary woman. Extraordinary woman. And his father was an alcoholic inventor, who was completely crazy.

And my father adored his mother. And as I told you, she died when he was, just before his ninth birthday. So that's right. All his stuff came from his mother in the sense of, you're great Orson, you're wonderful, you're the best. Da da da da. So he could be no wrong, you know what I mean? He would, but he was encouraged to do that. So whatever was there came out because there was an enormous encouragement behind that. And he had no fear. He had no fear. That was his thing. He had no fear. So this mind that never stopped. And he was one of those people that, what I admired about him the most as a person was two things, that I admired him about the most. One was this intense need to know more. He just was fascinated by everything. And everybody, he just wanted to know.

And it was not to show off. He was just interested. He was interested in everything, and different people, and different cultures, and different everything. Everything. Anything and everything. And the other, which was huge, cause this was huge obviously for me, was he was the most unprejudiced person in the world. I've never known anybody who had no vision of race or religion. I mean it just didn't exist in his life. So it didn't exist in ours. I remember being, having been brought up in Europe and only visiting America and for very short periods of time when we moved to America, which was in 1977. So shocked by the racism in this country. I mean my mother and I remember, we were just like, no. You know what I mean? We were right. Cuz it never existed for you. Yeah, no, in my family, in my life it didn't.

And in those days in Europe it didn't either. Or if it did it, we certainly didn't see it. Do you know what I mean? That's right. America was just, I mean, we're shocked. I mean, just shocked. Shocked. So that was my introduction to racism. And I, having never really been around it or known, even known about it, I was shocked. I mean, just shocked. So that's the two, as I said, those are the two great things that I admired of him. And he really was, he was just so unprejudiced. He was amazing. And that's about everything.

Phil Wharton
And that's a little known on the surface as we were speaking about earlier. Is this the racial justice, and the advocate for social justice. Yes. Was not as known in his works, as he.

Beatrice Welles
No. And he was doing

Phil Wharton
wasn't interested in just the external veneer.

Beatrice Welles
This in the thirties, and the forties. He was doing it on radio, talking about a black man that had been, I can't remember the name of the black guy, but it was a young black guy who got beat up by a police officer and was blinded by this police officer. And my father had gone on the radio and he sat in one of his shows. Because he was on the radio, for people who don't know before. That was the big radio show. In Hollywood, he was on the radio all the time. I mean he had his own radio show, and he was on five different shows in every day. And he was The Shadow, which was a very famous

Phil Wharton
Yes. <laugh> the Shadow knows

Beatrice Welles
The thirties. The Shadow knows.

Phil Wharton
What evil, lurks in the hearts of men.

Beatrice Welles
Exactly, the Shadow knows, the Shadow knows. So he spent, but he used his time, his airtime to talk about this. Yes. This black, young black man. And to say that he felt that it was his job to do that. And I remember always, always him saying when, for example, I don't know some Oscar or something, I don't know. That somebody stood up and said, I'm not going to do this. Or we must fight for or something while they accepted their Oscar, or whatever award, or whatever it was that we were watching. He always said, you must, if you have a voice, if you have an audience, if you have somebody who will listen to you, who will look at you, that's your job. And you believe in something, you need to speak out for people to say, oh, it's not the place. Well when is the place? If you have a platform and people will listen to you. And they do. I mean look at, bless Joaquin Phoenix, one of the best one, the most beautiful speeches at a Oscar, when he went about what we are doing. And it was about animals. Cause he is big animal activist. But then we have, Leonardo DiCaprio who finally wins an Oscar, who spends half of his speech talking about the climate and the world.

Phil Wharton
Using that platform for good.

Using that's right. And that's what it's and you should. And I always remembered that from my father. And I always thought that was such wise advice. And I always get so annoyed when people say, well it's not your, no, it's, it is why. But some people are not activists. People are very scared or happy or feel that they, it's not their job, not their place. Not comfortable. Whatever. Some of us are activists. I'm an activist. My father was an activist.

Phil Wharton
That's right. And it's so beautiful. And I love that in you. And what about the rollback, Beatrice? If you had the opportunity, what would you redo or do differently if anything?

Beatrice Welles
Oh gosh. <laugh>. Strike the question. Question. Yeah. <laugh>, get rid of that question. Oh my God.

Phil Wharton
<laugh> Crumple up your paper.

Beatrice Welles
There is a side of me that says, oh nothing. I would leave it exactly the same. And then there's the other side of me that says, oh my God, where do I start? <laugh>. Right. You know what? I don't know. Of course there's so many things that I wish I had done differently. We all are. I mean nobody that, if someone says to you, I wouldn't change it. I don't believe a word of it. Right. No, we can't change it. That's reality. That's right. And things I believe happen in life for a reason. But I really don't believe in those coincidences. I just don't, I believe that everything happens for a reason. Cause it always happens at a time when you're ready, even though you think you're not, you're ready. This is life. So you have to accept the good and the bad. So there's lots of mistakes. I've made tons. Of course I have. Would I like to redo them? Yes. But would I have had the life that I had? Yes. Probably not. Would it have been better? I don't know. It could have been much worse. No, I, I've had a great life. I've had a difficult life. But so has everybody. So no, I don't know because it's, no, because if not, I wouldn't be here and be who I am. And that doesn't mean that I'm great or I'm extremely happy with who I am. But that's where I am. And yes, I'd love to change a million things. Yeah. So for me it, it's an unanswerable question. Does that make sense?

Phil Wharton
It totally makes sense. And I think all those challenges and those are what make you make you so beautiful, I think in my eyes.

Beatrice Welles
It makes everybody, but it makes everybody it what makes you, it's that not the good things. No. The good things. No, what makes you is the hard things. The good things are, the good things are think you're lucky that you get the good things. That's what we gotta start thinking is how lucky we are when we do get the good things. Yes, the gratitude. because we just expect, the gratitude, we just expect them. And also this is a lesson that I learned a long, long time ago and I try and remember it, but many times I don't. There are moments in life that are sublime, sublime that you don't expect. And you try and remember it at that moment. Appreciate it when it's happening to you. Yes, because that's when it counts, that's right. Not looking back, because looking back doesn't do any good, I don't think. It really doesn't. So be in that presence mode, be in that presence mode. Famous thing. Live in the now. So when something great and I, I'll tell you, this is a funny story, but it's not a funny story, but it's a different story. I don't know if you know. But I do, I used to write now and again, yes, I'm not very good, but I used to write and I did an article for an English magazine called Tatler Magazine, which is quite well known in England. It's a sort of mixture, It's like a Town and Country, and Vogue, mixed together magazine. It's been there forever. I think it's like 200 years old or something. And a friend of a very, very, very dear friend of mine, I've known forever, she's still a good friend was the editor for 10 years. Tina Brown was the editor of Tatler, before she went to Vanity Fair. And my friend Janie Proctor, took over from Tina Brown. So I did a couple of articles for her and one of the articles I did because Janie wanted an American sports thing. And I thought, what? <laugh>? Yeah. Sports? <laugh> me. Yeah, why not? And I thought, okay, how about basketball? I like basketball. It's the only sport, I mean I love tennis, but, to watch basketball is very exciting. If there's a ball that is the sport that I would actually watch, and have watched and enjoyed. So they have, well of course I thought I was speaking to somebody in England right now, <laugh>The All-Star weekend. So you know what everybody in America knows what the All-Star Weekend is. Okay, thank you. I thought I was talking to someone in Britian, we're talking about Tatler and I thought I have to explain what the All-Star weekend is. Anyway, so the All-Star weekend was in Phoenix at the time. I had a home in Sedona. So That's right. It was like I said to Jenny, my God, I could go to the All-Star weekend. There's going to be the biggest basketball players in the world, including at that time Michael Jordan. I mean it was then it was the nineties. Yep. So she said great. So I went and I remember I was sitting in, and the press gets every, oh on All Star weekend, the press gets everything. I mean, you get the best seats, you get the best this because they want to promote it. Or at least they did then. I don't know what it's like now. This is a long time ago. So I remember sitting and I was watching and there were all, I mean it was the big game. I don't know which one it is between the East and the West, right? And at that time it was like everybody, I mean that it was famous and I'd been watching and followed it. So I knew who these people were. And I remember just sitting there and saying, oh my God, this is so fabulous. And I remember that's when I went, I must remember this. I must, because I'm enjoying this so much right now. And that's when I changed in the nineties and said, try and remember those special moments. And it could be anything. It could be a sunset. I'm not talking about an All- Star weekend full of basketball players.

Phil Wharton
It doesn't have to be all glitz.

Beatrice Welles
They are there because they're such sportsman, no it could be anything. That's right. But that was the, that's what, cause I had the moment and I had the time to look around me and say, my God, look where you are. And these are the best basketball players in the world. And you're sitting here and you're watching it in the front on the court. Oh my God.

Phil Wharton
And that's during the Dream team era where it was. You're seeing all these amazing, iconic players. That had won, won the gold, they had won the gold for the US, and the team went all over the world. It was Huge. And yeah, there's nothing, It's the pinnacle.

Beatrice Welles
I mean yeah, it was, but that was the moment, the aha moment that I had that changed me to try and remember to experience, the gratitude that you have while you are actually in that moment versus remembering it afterwards. I'm thinking, wasn't that great Looking back. Which is nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with booking back. Of course. Yes. But it's so much better to experience it and be aware of it when it's actually happening.

Phil Wharton
And then you're relying on the feebleness of memory and sort of <laugh> the disconnect. Exactly. <laugh> of that and the biases, and all the things when you could just be absorbing it in the now. I so love that. Exactly. I so love that as advice.

Beatrice Welles
No, it's the best. I mean honestly. And it can be, just try and remember that and it could be a split second and just say, wow. Yes. And be aware of it. Cause you're then so grateful and so happy because it's given you so much joy, and it was a great gift. I don't know who sent that over, but it was great.

Phil Wharton
Right. Yeah. That's a great gift. And Beatrice, in your journey, what's most important to you now? What does the road ahead look like for you and what's next?

Beatrice Welles
Oh God, I don't know. Now it, it's really, well, as far as my father is concerned which is my business I guess you could call it is to keep him alive. In other words, to keep his name alive. People in this country especially, which is sad. Yeah. Don't know him. They really don't. If you mentioned Citizen Kane, most people have heard of it, but they have no idea who made it. And they don't really know what Citizen Kane is. They've just heard of it. You know what I mean? So I would very much like to be able to do more in that sense for people to know more about him. That's why the museum would've been so great, even though it would've been in Spain. It was in a place where they had five million tourists come in a year but didn't, looking back now, you see wrong. But I want to keep his name alive. In other words, because I forever, that I wanna die knowing that I've done my best for that. And not because he was my father. God forbid, that's got nothing to do with it. It's because this is a man who I really believe was an important American, not just an important American director. I think he was an important American. He did, of course he did a lot for cinema. Of course he did a lot for the arts, but he also was this extraordinary maverick. He was this extraordinary independent person that nobody did that. Nobody did what he did. Everybody cow tailed to the big production houses, and producers, and everything else he didn't. He only made what he wanted to make as far as movies. And that's pretty admirable. And something that people were not doing. Now of course they're doing it, but they weren't then. But it would be lovely to sort of know that there's a continuation, and there's talk about, not a remake of Citizen Kane. God forbid nobody wants that. But then again, this is nothing to do with me. I don't own Kane. I have no interest in it, except that it's my father's. You know what I mean? Yes. I wish I owned it. God, I wish I owned it.

Phil Wharton
I wish you did too. Because you do a lot of good with those.

Beatrice Welles
I know. I know

Phil Wharton
Those residuals with that.

Beatrice Welles
Yes, I know. But it's a movie that is going to be there forever. But it is 80 years old. And there's a talk about, because there was quite a few scripts written about Kane before it, the final script, my father, anyway, he changed scripts every day. He would go to work and change the script as he was at work. All right. So when people say this is the working script of Orson Wells, you say, really? I saw him change things not in the script, but actually just write it out in his handwriting, and hand it to an actor and say, let's do this instead. You know what I mean?

Phil Wharton
And he had full control. That was in the negotiation. I believe, is that right? for Kane?

Beatrice Welles
So yes. For that he always did on the dailies, whatever called then, apart from, apart from a few, sadly, Touch of Evil in the end, Magnificent Ambersons,they took him, when he was shooting them. I mean that's what he wanted. And that's why he went to Europe. Because he wanted his control, and not do the movies that they wanted him to do here. But to, it's not a remake of Kane is to get all these scripts. Because if you actually look at the full story of Charles Foster Kane, it is would be almost a four hour movie, which of course he didn't make and couldn't make. So it could very well become, I don't know what they're called nowadays. Are they called miniseries? Or is that very old fashioned?

Phil Wharton
No, no they're still callled miniseries.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah, you know something for an HBO and Netflix, whatever, one of those.

Phil Wharton
Series of episodes.

Beatrice Welles
And use the full script, which is much more in depth, which explain the story, becomes much more understandable. It's more about his childhood. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in these scripts and it can be, you know, change the time period. Don't call it Kane. You can do whatever you like. But what that does is, makes people say, oh wait a minute, this is, oh, this is based on, oh, Citizen Kane and Orson. Welles, so it's a reminder of my father. And then people will then maybe go watch Citizen Kane, or watch Chimes, or watch another movie and remember him. So 10 years ago, would I like that to have happened? No, I would've said absolutely not. Nobody, I don't care if it's you change the name. Nobody touches Kane. Right. But now I realize how incredibly important it is, because something like this could extend that knowledge of him that much longer.

Phil Wharton
And build on that. And build on that.

Beatrice Welles
And build on it.

Phil Wharton
That's the interesting thing. Exactly. That would speak to his creativity, that power of course. That he had inside there, oh yeah, let's keep moving with it. And making it something new. And the newness of creation.

Beatrice Welles
Exactly. Exactly. So as I said, I have nothing to do with it but they always ask me because they're terrified that because my father had, especially with Kane, he had seven different contracts. Oh my gosh. Which is unheard of. I mean, if you Google that, they'll say, nobody ever had the control that my father had over that movie. And even though he sold it, there's still certain things. And that's why I was able to stop the colorization of it back in the eighties. I think it was when Turner bought MGM. That's right. So they always need me, even though I don't own anything.

Phil Wharton
Good, I'm glad for that. I'm glad for that.

Beatrice Welles
They will always need the estate behind them. So yes. And I'm all for it now. Cause if it happens, I, I'm going to insist that I have a say in it. But it isn't bad. Not that anybody would do that. But you know <laugh> I'm a control freak, so I.

Phil Wharton
<laugh> In a good way. In way in that case.

Beatrice Welles
I would like to, in a good and when it comes to my father yes, in a good way. So I would certainly like to have a say in it. But I would love to see that happen for him. If not, we continue and just try and as I said, keep him alive because I think he's very important. And that was something that I had to do and it took time. But I was finally able to do it, was to separate myself from being the daughter, to being an outsider looking in at his work and saying, okay, is this, you know what I'm saying? How good is this? Very powerful. And I was able to do it because for a long time and it still is. That's why it's so hard for me because it's so emotional.

Phil Wharton
That's right. Yeah.

Beatrice Welles
When it comes to his work, it's him. You're close to it. It's not his work, it's him. Because that was the love of his life. No, wait a minute, let's get this straight. Okay. The love of his life was his work. Okay. That was number one. Number. I think I came second. Okay. I really do. But his work was number one, was first. Absolutely. Absolutely first. So if you love someone, what would you do for them? We they?

You want to shine the light on their work. The thing that they most revere.

On what they love the most. On what they love the most. So it's his work. So that's what you try and do. But not only because you don't own it, but also because he only made thirteen movies.

Phil Wharton
It's hard to, yeah follow that trail.

Beatrice Welles
It's very hard, and no TV. Everything he did, he did when he was, not everything, but a lot of what he did, he did when he was so young. I mean Citizen Kane, he started when he was twenty four years old.

Phil Wharton
Twenty Four.

Beatrice Welles
I know. It's mind boggling. I mean he finished it when he was twenty six, but twenty six, God, hello. War of the Worlds. He was twenty three. I mean War twenty two, or twenty three 1938, yeah, no he was, yeah, no yeah. He was twenty three. He was twenty three years old, when he scared America.

Phil Wharton
He stopped the whole nation in its' tracks.

Beatrice Welles
Yes. I know.

Phil Wharton
Yeah.

Beatrice Welles
So, this is a man that must not be forgotten.

Phil Wharton
No. And it won't be. It won't be.

Beatrice Welles
I hope not. I hope not. And I hope that we can, all of us who care about animals continue to do the work that we can. And that now I realize, is it too late? I don't know because I worry so much about this planet. But I realize that more and more finally studies are being made that animals actually have feelings. They actually feel, they actually, oh my God, Care they. Because people don't, people really believe, so many people that animals are just Darwin, property. That we have the property. Yeah, yeah. Property. And that they don't feel, they don't have feelings. They just don't. And why this continues to be the belief is beyond me. But there's a lot of more studies being done. And it's like you're going finally, finally eventually, you know, have hope. There's great hope. If we can survive. If we can survive. And I don't know if we can, I really don't. And I know that's a horrible thing to say, but I really worry about this planet. I really do. It's very frightening. I have to tell you that I'm very glad that I don't have children and grandchildren. I would be a wreck if I had them, just thinking that this is what I would leave behind for them. You know, I'm sorry. I know that's very down but.

Phil Wharton
No, but I

Beatrice Welles
It's reality you know.

Phil Wharton
Especially as you've done the work, and you've gone in and been such a fighter for this is most of us using it as a trash heap, and not as you said about your father, focus on what we love, and if we don't love the land, how can we remain here? And if we don't love the animals Exactly. How can we not bring them forward? So it's

They're part of it. They're part of this world. I mean we can't just say, well they don't matter. But they do because they're part of it and they're an integral part of it. We all are. Actually no, we're not. We are not. We humans are the only ones that are really, the world can go on really well without us.

Phil Wharton
Right. They could really use a little cleanup there.

Beatrice Welles
Exactly. But it's interesting cause we, we've, and we've talked a lot about my father and of course we would. But he would talk to me in the early seventies, I was still show jumping. So I was in my early teens about the environment. The first time I ever heard about the environment, about the wrong things that we were doing was in the early seventies by my father.

Phil Wharton
So you really grew up with that.

Beatrice Welles
I grew up with that. You know what I mean? So it's

Phil Wharton
That reverence for the land and stewardship.

Beatrice Welles
And respect. It's all about respect. And that's, that's really what life is about. In the end. We talk about love, and love is the most important thing. But you know what, respect is really close. Right. And really out there because when people talk about, like good manners or whatever and say, but you know what good manners are? All good manners are respect.

Phil Wharton
And that's the essential quality there.

Beatrice Welles
Exactly. Because you have to respect everything to be able to function well, on this planet, and in this life. And we're lost. I'm not saying we're losing it. I think we've lost it. Because of the way the world is nowadays, you don't need respect anymore. You're not taught it. It's not important.

Phil Wharton
That's what I've learned in this process since 2010 and leaving Arizona and coming back to the land in this small valley. In this little farm, and it's only nineteen acres. But learning how to be a good steward of the land, and grow our own food, and regenerate the soil. And of course with these draft horses and they eat organic, and then you put their organic matter right back in and you're regenerating and certain things you leave fallow and

Beatrice Welles
Right.

Phil Wharton
You're learning, okay, how do we leave this little plot a little better than when we came. Exactly. Just one little spot. Exactly. This we can handle. Can I get one puppy from the border in mutt scouts. Can I, those kind of things.

Beatrice Welles
Right. Exactly.

Phil Wharton
When we reconnected, and I realized the kind of things you're doing with Brooke, and the team there and it's amazing. It gives me hope.

Beatrice Welles
It's true.

Phil Wharton
To know, that you're there. And I so appreciate you Beatrice.

Beatrice Welles
Well, there's lots of us, but not enough of us. There's not enough. And we should mention a little bit Mutt Scouts. I hope you can have Brooke on. They're a wonderful group. They're a wonderful group. We will. They really are. They do things that most people don't.

Phil Wharton
No, they're around the clock. I know we haven't got them yet on the show, but we will definitely bring to light tireless work on the border and all the dogs that are coming from across the border of Mexico.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah, it's frightening, it's terrifying. Yeah. That's just Tijuana.

Phil Wharton
Yeah. Yeah. And then they're doing also across in other places too as well, aren't they? In Los Angeles? They're doing the project.

Beatrice Welles
Of course. Yeah. In San Diego. And they're on Southern California. But I'd say 80% of their dogs come from Tijuana, and they're just, they're a mess. I know, I fostered one for seven months, and it was I know you did. I never fostered anything like that in my life. It was unbelievable.

Phil Wharton
The devastation of the brokenness of that dog.

Beatrice Welles
Yeah. The broken. And this was a young, and they're all young dogs. Because there's no old ones. They don't survive. All the dogs they get. I don't think there's one that's over a year old. They just don't survive that long. So they're all young and they're so broken, and so you just go, my God. And such a short time. They can be, it's frightening. Frightening. But thank God for them. Thank God for lots of people, for lots of wonderful people on this planet, thank God.

Phil Wharton
Yes. Yeah.

Beatrice Welles
And you're one of them, Phil!

Phil Wharton
Oh, you too, Beatrice. I'm just so honored to be with you, and thank you so much for coming on this episode of Intrinsic Drive, and sharing your story with us.

Beatrice Welles
Thrilled. I'm so glad I did it, and I just delighted that you're doing it. I enjoy listening to it. So my, I'm so glad you're up and running again.

Phil Wharton
That's right. It took us a while. Those...

Beatrice Welles
But you did it. You did it. And I'm thrilled.

Phil Wharton
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